In Season 2 of “The Cosby Show,” there’s an episode titled “Happy Anniversary” wherein the entire Huxtable family gathers in front of their living room staircase to perform a lip-synced version of the slinky rhythm and blues classic “Night Time is the Right Time.” It’s an exuberant moment, created to celebrate the wedding anniversary of Dr. Huxtable’s parents, and it is full of love and style and joy. And it’s funny.
In his new four-part docuseries “We Need to Talk About Cosby” (premiering Sunday on Showtime), director W. Kamau Bell shows this clip to a number of people he interviews, including Danielle Morgan, who is an assistant professor at Santa Clara University. Like so many others who appear in the docuseries, a range of emotions wash over her face as she watches.
“One of the main things I think about when I see that clip is just, there are a million reasons we don’t want what we know to be true about Bill Cosby to be true, and I think that clip highlights so many of them,” she says. “It’s just such a bright and warm scene and I think many of us don’t want to lose the way that those kinds of scenes make us feel, and what they meant for us watching at the time.
